


Some Call Us Heroes And Some Call Us Fools

by SeaWitchDreams



Category: Once Upon a Time (In Space) - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 05:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30083964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaWitchDreams/pseuds/SeaWitchDreams
Summary: Of Red Hood and General White, and thirty years of rebellion.
Relationships: Red Hood & Jack Spratt, Red Hood & Snow | General White
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Mechs Album Week





	Some Call Us Heroes And Some Call Us Fools

Red Hood is fourteen years old the day she first meets General White. She is the best hacker in the empire.

She has done her research, before approaching the forces of the resistance. She has read about White, seen her picture – both in rebellion documents and in empirical reports. Neither does her justice. The pictures captured the ruined face, showed the long dark hair, the pressed uniform, the harsh dignity of her. none of them quite captured her height and the way she held herself – almost a head taller than the man walking by her side. None then truly showed the force of her gaze, either – that burning fire in her eye.

That gaze lingers on Red when she approaches, assessing.

“The say you are the one who brought down the HMSS Huntsman without ever stepping foot on board.”

( _too late, too late. The numbers flickering on the screen as the as the hospital pod powered down behind her, her fingers flying, and by the time the wolf was hers, grandma was no longer breathing, and all there was was silence. Silence, until the moment the Huntsman hit the ground._

_Then there was screaming. Screaming and fire and blood.)_

“I did.”

The man standing beside her sputters.

“You can’t really believe that, can you?” He protests. “She is a _child_.”

White shrugs. “When the Rose was seventeen, she was already the best soldier in the military.” She says. "Sometimes that is the way things are."

"Still - "

The general raises a hand and the man falls silent. She turns back to Red.

"So you brought down a royal carrier.” She says, tone businesslike. "I'm not going to ask why. Reports say you value your privacy. I'm sure they gave you a reason." The venom in those word is clear and somehow calming – a sudden, clear answer to the wordless scream inside Red herself. "I am going to ask you: what's next?"

There is a burning fire in general white’s eye, and Red Hood had been screaming into the empty void for two years and in the older woman’s gaze she finally finds an answer.

She looks up and meets the general’s eye. She has to crane her neck to do so, but she faces the challenging gaze unwavering.

“They aren’t done paying.” She says. “And I want them to be stopped.”

( _It started when the carrier hit the ground and will end when there is no man and no machine in this galaxy to carry out the orders of King Cole.)_

General White smiles, then, humourlessly. The expression seems strange on her ruined face. Like it doesn’t belong

“Welcome to the resistance, then, Red Hood. Take a day to settle in and then come talk to me. We have work to do.”

The Resistance takes Red Hood in like a ship gathered in by the tide. it is easy, to become one of them (it had been a lonely two years, between the huntsman and the day she decided where to take her stand). She is sent from planet to planet, from commander to commander, always where her skills are needed most. She steals intelligence on defences and secret supply routes for the siege on Hamlin. She uses the Wolf to take over crown vehicles in the Battle of Aladdin Moon. She is there for a dozen skirmishes, a hundred incidents all over the galaxy, pushing things and ensuring victory everywhere the rebellion needs a push.

At first, she is a faint rumour even among the revolution’s forces. She hears soldiers speculating about her sometimes – the mysterious hacker who allegedly joined the rebelling forces, the person responsible to the malfunction in the enemy ships before the battle on Ariel, the one who controlled the behemoth that killed over a dozen rosies. even that is odd. She has been thorough, erasing every evidence of her actions, of herself. it is strange, for the wide world to once again acknowledge her existence.

This changes the day she meets Tommy Thumb.

She is first sent to outpost Rapunzel almost a year after she joins the resistance. The crown’s forces got better at tracking their communication, White explains in her missive, and help in securing and reestablishing both the radio signal and the recruitment communication was vital.

Tom meets her when she gets off the ship, escorts her to the command center and watches as she and the wolf do their work, evading the crown’s trackers and breaking into new frequencies. He talks to her as she works, jokes and asks questions, and after meeting many resistance high-ups who did not know quite how to react to her, Hood can’t help but like him.

When she is done, he lowers his dark glasses and gives her a considering look.

“You know, you really are something special.” He says. “You’re wasted as a secret weapon, Hood. I should be shouting your name across the galaxy. We could tell some _tales_.”

Red Hood makes a face. “I don’t like people knowing things about me.”

“oh, they don’t need to know anything real about you – just that you are here, all brave and brilliant and on our side. Makes our people feel better, you know. Makes their people _scared._ ”

Hood thinks of what she had seen of the rebellion, all those tired, scared, determined people. Thinks of all she saw and heard while going through the enemy’s network – the Crown’s forces arrogance and cruelty, Scheherezade’s lies. thinks of the whispers she had heard; of the name she had chosen.

“Alright.” She tells Tommy. “Let’s tell a story.”

After that, outpost Rapunzel become a regular stop in her neverending travel between the stars - almost a semi-permanent home. She had a room there, containing the few possessions she cares to keep and does not carry in her bag everywhere she goes. There are people there that know her face – the crew in the communication and coordination center, where she spends hour helping them get defectors past the asteroids field. her regular seat beside Tom as prattles on to the microphone, watching the frequencies and occasionally whispering a dry comment to make him chuckle. Some of the other soldiers, one she does not work beside, but finds herself speaking and spending time with anyways, like lieutenant Goldie and Mad Jack.

She first meets Mad Jack in her third visit to outpost Rapunzel. They were bound to run into each other sooner or later – the base has many people passing through it, but not many permanent residents, and only a handful of legends.

She was planning to meet up with Goldie, originally, but the Locks Flight was delayed by an encounter with some enemy fighters right outside the asteroid field, and now Red is left to wait alone in the small, almost empty pilot lounge. The only other person in the room is a boy a few years older than her, his gun thrown carelessly on the chair beside him. On the table before him there are scattered cards, as well as bottle and two cups of some unidentified liquid.

She considers leaving him alone, but then she recognizes his face. Everyone heard of the Giantkiller, after all, and Red had found out a lot, going through the resistance files before she decided to join them. She is… curious.

He looks up from his cup when she approaches. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” He says. “You aren’t a pilot, are you?”

“No, just waiting for a friend.”

“Huh,” He says. “So was I. seems like the fucker isn’t bothering to show up today, though, so you can have his seat and drink.”

Red drops into the other chair and casts a suspicious look toward the cup. She frowns. “I’m not sure I’m legally allowed to drink that.”

A snort. “Probably not. But hey, this _is_ a rebellion. I don’t think anyone here cares.”

Red takes a careful whiff and nearly chokes at the smell. “I don’t think I want to drink that.”

“That’s fair. My friend always complains, too. Might be why he abandoned me to drink alone.”

She looks at the cards left at the table. “Pretty sure you were losing, anyway.”

Jack grins. “Very likely. You want to play?”

Hood considers it for a moment, then picks up the cards. “Sure. What do I call you, by the way?” 

He offers his hand. “Corporal John Spratt. Friends call me Mad Jack, you can go with that.”

She reaches across the table to take his hand. “Red Hood.”

His eyebrows raise. “Just Red Hood.”

“You can call me Red if you want. Or Hood. Some people do.”

He smiles. “Alright then, Red. It’s your turn.”

They are still playing when Goldie finally shows up, tired and cranky and still in her pilot’s uniform. She drags a chair over and drops into it with a groan.

“Fucking Rosies.” She swears. “May they all die in a black hole for ruining my planned break. What are you playing? And do you really drink this shit?”

“Go fish.” Red says, only half looking up from her cards. “And Jack does. How did it go?”

“Blasted them into oblivion, of course.” Goldie says, a hint of harsh pride in her voice. Everyone knows the pilots of Outpost Rapunzel are the quickest and cleverest in the resistance, living on the asteroid field as they do, and Goldie is the best of them all, holding the local record for most kills by a single pilot. “Command worried about how we didn’t see them coming, though – seems like they developed a new way of cloaking themselves. The want you to go up there and see if you and the Wolf can do something about it.”

Red cast a look toward the big clock on the wall. “Right now.”

“They all just came back, you can go later.” Jack rolls his eyes. “Goldie, you want to play?”

“Yeah, give me some cards. And _please_ put this weapon aside properly before we all get in trouble. Or, you know, _shot_.”

Jack makes an offended retort. On the other side of the room another group of tired pilots pours into the lounge, joking and complaining. Hood smiles, and begins dividing up the cards again.

Sometimes Red thinks she knows more secrets that anyone else in the galaxy.

They are her trade, even more than the attacks and the takeovers that buy her her reputation. Battle plans. Secret weapons. old experiments and buried failures. The darkest secrets of both the resistance and the crown reveal themselves on her screen, and never leave it.

There are colonels and commanders, of course, with access to classified intiligence – but colonels and commanders know only what they need to know, wherein the Red Hood knows every secret the general ever had need for, and some even White will never know.

She is also the only one who ever discovers the Woman in Gray.

That is how Red calls her in her mind, for there is no name, no title for her anywhere to be find, not a single source that will tell the galaxy best hacker of her origins. There is no information of her anywhere in the rebels’ database, and nowhere in the Royal Archive that Hood can find. That is the thing that draws her attention to her, really – a wandering stranger who does not exist.

She is not a rebel, or a criminal, or a fugitive from any trouble that the Red Hood can find. She goes from planet to planet, never stopping at the same place more than once, breaking into royal institutes and always leaving without taking anything, and without leaving anything behind. Hood finds her again and again as the years pass, and when she goes searching, finds evidence of her going back at least two decades.

At first, Red doesn’t mention her to anyone. The woman doesn’t _act_ like a threat, and Res doesn’t know enough for a report anyway. But she keeps looking for her, collecting information, and as more and more appearances pile up, a pattern becomes clear.

She is looking for something, Red realizes. Had been looking for it for a long time, and cannot find it.

In the end, she takes her findings straight to White.

The general goes through the report slowly, lingering on the blurry photographs, the hypothetical route. there is a look on her face that is hard to describe, something Red had never seen before in their years working together.

“You’re alive, then.” She says quietly, her voice unreadable. “I have been wondering. I suppose she would have liked that.”

Then she seems to remember herself, and looks back up at Hood, still waiting across the table.

“Leave her be.” The general says. “She is not a friend to the king, and not a concern for us.”

Red consider her chances, considers leaving now, then decides to risk it. “Who is she?”

White is quiet for a long moment. Red is almost surprised, when she speaks again to answer.

“Once, she could have been my sister. As things are… she and I are looking for the same thing, now. And stars, I hope she finds it, because I have and army to lead and a war to win, and sometimes… it seems like I stopped hoping long ago.”

The words are sound oddly small in the darkness of the small office, lost and almost broken. The she collects herself, her voice steady once more.

“We should both get back to work, Red Hood. The king won’t fall dead on his own.” She hesitates for a moment, then adds quietly. “And keep me updated on your lady in gray. I want to know if something happens to her, or if she needs our help or – or if she finds anything.”

There is something in her expression – a strange vulnerability that seems entirely alien in the face of the resistance’s confident, driven leader. And Red never thought White to be infallible – she knows better that that – but she has never seen her hesitate, either. She feels… almost honoured, all of a sudden, to have seen it. She can’t imagine many have.

“I will.” She says.

Goldie gets shot down a few weeks before Hood’s nineteen birthday.

They used to say she could get through anything. Not breach to big or too small for lieutenant Goldie, they said, no enemy too fast or too slow. She will always get it right.

“Yeah, well, that how it works.” Says Jack bitterly. ”You’re invincible right until the moment you aren’t.”

It was bear-class ships, the report said. Three of them. They were supposed to be out of the base the Locks Flight was hitting, but something went wrong and they didn’t get out in time, and then they didn’t get out at all.

And now it is late, and speeches have been given, and tomorrow there will be a funeral, but right now it’s just Jack and Red, sitting alone in a table set for three.

Jack is drinking again, has been for… Red doesn’t even know how long. Red doesn’t know a lot of things, right now. She is sitting with her elbows on the table, head in her hands, eyes stinging, and feels the most tired she has ever been.

Red is invincible, right now, the resistance great Hack-meister. Invincible, accept for the moments when she isn’t, when the enemy is too smart and the task is too hard and people die. Like grandma. Like Goldie.

She looks up at Jack, pouring himself another cup, and he should have died years ago, in a behemoth attack far from here, except that he didn’t and now he is a legend and never will, and Red is too.

They will die anyway, of course, probably sooner rather than later. That is, as he said, how it works.

She reaches a hand to take the cup from his hand and drains it. It tastes even worse than it smells.

“we’re immortal _now_ ” she says.

Jack laughs.

And then life moves on.

The war doesn’t stop for anyone, never has. Outpost Rapunzel mourns its losses and continues in its course, and so does Red Hood. She fortifies their defences, upgrades their communication. She destabilizes the economy in a small crown-allied planet, just to make herself feel better. She packs her few belonging, preparing to travel to the front again, always where she is needed most.

She spends a long, pleasant afternoon in the broadcasting centre, organizing and preparing new connections for when she is not around, as jack sits at the other screen, preparing the pre-recorded stuff and checking them for issues for today’s program.

“I don’t think there’s a person in the galaxy who _hadn’t_ heard about Geppetto and the three pigs exposure” Red points out as Tom’s voice pours out of the radio, exclaiming about terrible crimes in dramatic pronunciation that she could probably recite along to at this point.

“nah, this thing is years old.” Jack agrees. “We just keep playing it because it gives Tom a good opportunity to talk shit about the king’s inner circle, which is his favourite thing to do. Also we don’t have the crew to actually record a new one.”

Hood laughs. The old story comes to an end and familiar notes begin to rise as the next recording begins.

Red hums along. “Oh when the red rose, it comes a-marching…”

“I wish he would stop playing that song.” Groans Jack.

“I like that song.” Red says matter-of-factly. “And I get to make requests, seeing as I am the one who actually hacks the frequencies.”

He stops and looks at her, suddenly serious. “You know I never destroyed a Behemoth, right?”

She had always known. Even if her hack into the resistance files hadn’t taught her that, knowing him would have. Jack didn’t have that bitter fire in his soul, the way Red herself and the general and some other fighters she had met did – the kind of fire you needed in order to break giants. Jack was just… scared and tired and sad.

And Jack is her friend, too, and so instead of saying any of that, she just grins, mock-condescending. “Well, who cares? I did.”

“So why don’t they write a song about _you_ instead, huh?”

“Because there are actual stories to tell of her.” Says Tommy, striding into the room and dropping himself in the chair in front of the mic. “Hood, are we in?”

Hood presses a key on her keyboard. “You’ve got twenty minutes, tops. Start talking.”

There are days Red can’t remember who she was before the resistance. Can’t imagine herself – can’t imagine the galaxy – without this war that was here before her and will be here after. She lives it and breaths it. There are days it seems like this fight is everything she is, and she wonders if she ever truly existed outside of it.

She and the general have a conversation, once, after they bring down Baba Yaga. The rebel forces have settled down in the now freed capital, to rest and heal and plan before they move on. There is a celebration in the city’s streets, soldiers and civilians drinking and dancing together. Outside the walls, a great pyre rases, where they are burning the fallen roses’ bodies.

The moons are high in the sky when Red Hood steals away from the party, searching for a quiet place to sit for a while. She expects the wall towers to be empty, and is somewhat surprised to find the general of the resistance sitting alone, smoking a cigar and looking out on the landscape beyond – the vast forests outside, the remains of yesterday’s battlefield, the still burning pyre.

the view is surprisingly beautiful.

The general startles and turns around when Red comes up the stairs. Upon recognition, her guarded expression softens into an almost-smile and she pats the stretch of the wall beside her. Red sits down.

“Not enjoying the celebration?” White asks curiously, not turning away from the view before her.

“Just needed a quiet moment.” Red says. “You?”

A faint smile. “Something similar. I’m afraid I wasn’t feeling very festive tonight.”

They sit there for a while in a companionable silence. The weather on this planet is colder that that on the world Red was born to, and she enjoys the cool night wind in her face, the odd smell of the air here. Absentmindedly, she notices the way White’s eyes keep straying to the pyre.

“They are nothing like her, you know.” The general’s voice breaks the silence.

It takes red a moment to realise what she is talking about. “The rose reds, you mean? Like general Rose?”

“she was so clever, and driven and brave. And kind, too. People don’t remember it, but she was kind. They are all just… blank. There is nothing of her in their eyes.”

Red Hood takes a moment to take it all in, the emotion in the words, the implications of them.

“Some people remember she was kind.” She says, eventually, instead of addressing all that. “Adam says she was. And Dr. Lorenzo, too.”

White seems surprised. “Have you been asking people?”

“Well, not exactly asking.” Red Hood admits. “But finding things out _is_ part of my job.”

White chuckles softly. “Fair enough. So, what has the resistance been saying about my – about the legendary Rose?”

Red considers it. “They say all the things you said – that she was clever and brave and kind. They say that she was young, and brilliant. They say she caused a lot of pain in the name of the king, and they say he betrayed her anyway.” She thinks for a moment, trying to remember. “there are dozen different stories of who she was and where she came from. Some people say she was from the periphery, the child of some backwater planet who rose to greatness. Other say she came from New Constantinople itself.” She snorts. “some people even say she was a princess, or marrying one.”

White glances at her. “You don’t believe that?”

Red shrugs. "There are no princesses in king Cole's empire."

The general tilts her head back and laughs. "That's right." She agrees. "Not a single one."

A memory raises its head. An old file, buried decades ago, deep in the Huntsman’s system. A long-forgotten story from the birth of the resistance. a thought she never finished.

"Didn't Rose have a sister? I remember reading something about her once.”

"She died. A short while after the wedding. The king made sure to leave no survivors."

Red snorts. "Sounds about right."

The general is oddly quiet. Red turns to look at her curiously. "Did you know her?"

"I did."

"I'm sorry."

"He will pay for what happened to her." White inhales from her cigar. “She wouldn’t have liked it, of course. She would have hated the person I've become." smoke fills the air. "but then what did that fool know anyway."

Res looks at her sitting there, her bitter expression illuminated by the stars above, and knows.

There are times when the person you were could not survive the world you lived in, and all you can do is let her die, and become someone else in her wake. 

There was a little girl, once, who had a name beside Red Hood, a life that the war barely touched, who loved baking and singing and her grandmother, and to whom hacking was a wonderful, exciting game.

And then there was the Wolf, and the Huntsman, and there was nothing left of that girl after that.

I erased myself from existence, Red wants to tell her. Every photo, every document. My birth certificate does not exist. The name that was once mine will be forgotten. I am erasing myself from existence every day, destroying their reports, killing their researchers. All I left behind is the oath of my revenge. All I am is the oath of my revenge, and a story told on the radio on cold nights.

She says nothing. Not because White won't understand. Maybe because she will.

In the end, she just says:

"For whatever it counts, I'm glad for the person you've become."

Let princess Snow lay in her cold grave. Red knows who her leader is.

When she is twenty-three, they get outpost Rapunzel.

Later, they will discover it was captain Miller who sold them out, trying to save her father from the king’s dungeon. But right now, it doesn’t matter how or why – all that matters is that the enemy is coming, the outpost is falling, and anything and anyone that doesn’t get out now never will.

Red barrels into the broadcasting center, her rifle in one hand and a box full of confidential information in the other, and this why she hates physical file, they are dangerous and clumsy and you can’t leave them behind, and she told command but they wouldn’t listen and now she has to run for the stupid discs -

“ – and never, ever, stop fighting. Farewell, my friends.”

“ _Tom?_ What the hell are you still doing here? The evac ships are leaving _now!”_

“Then you should hurry up and get on them.” Tom reaches and takes the last recording out of the device. “Take this with you. It’s my grand goodbye, so don’t let anything happened to it.”

“Goodbye? Tom, what’s going on?”

“I’ve been with this rebellion for longer that you’ve been alive, kid.” He says (and he is definitely lying, Red knows exactly when he joined and - ) “And I think it’s time for me to go, and go in flames.”

“Then – what? You just – decided to die?”

Tom smiles sadly. “It’s about time I do something beside sit here and talk.” He says. “We’ll buy you some time. Don’t waste it.”

There is no way to argue, and no time. Red takes the recording, takes a deep breath. “I’m glad I got to know you, Tom.”

“Same here, Hood. Good luck.”

She turns and runs.

It is only after they have reached Ariel that she knows Jack is not with them, either – he probably never even tried to board the ships.

She isn’t surprised. Not really. She is tired, too.

But she is angrier than she is tired, and Tommy and Jack and Miller can all go to hell – Red will see this through. Red will see this end. 

Red hood is twenty-seven years old the last time she sees General White.

She is not the one to discover the Zantine defense grid has been damaged – she has given up on it a long time ago, as soon as she discovered the truth about the Rose of Briar. But the resistance has people everywhere, these days, and one of them comes through with the news of something odd happening to the grid’s organic heart. The Red Hood is contacted as soon as the information reaches command, and ten minutes later, she knows the war will end tomorrow.

She notifies command and then gets to work. It doesn’t take long. She has changed the Wolf over the years, improved it, made it stronger. Prepared for the day when everything will depend on its capabilities. The defense grid is vulnerable without a human mind in its center. They tear it apart in less than a day.

Through that day and long into the night, the ships gather. They come from everywhere – big and small bases, planets long freed and planets that were, until yesterday, the resistance’s main target. Tired veterans and new recruits. New, advanced ships and ones who had been retired for decades – all of the resistance gathers in Zantine’s dark skies, and the sight is breathtaking.

Red watches it happen through the windows of the SS Grimm, the Resistance’s flagship. She will be staying here, during the battle, attacking the enemy weapons from afar, trying to cause as much damage as possible. The Royal ships will be quick to find the source of the trouble, of course, and quick to act against it, but that –

\- That is a problem to be faced later.

As she watches, the last of their forces arrive in the distance. Slowly, Red stands up, and makes her way to the ship’s bridge.

Its dark when she gets there, and almost empty. The big screens and monitors are all alight with information, showing the battlefield slowly forming. In the chair in front of them is slumped general White, head resting on her crossed hands on the keyboard, fallen asleep after a day and a half of frantic preparation for the battle that will end it all.

Red almost feels bad, waking her up.

“White.” She says quietly. “we’re ready.”

White raises her head from her hands and blinks. Then her eyes clear as memory hits, her spine drawing straight.

“I see.” She says calmly.

“Then it is time.”

There are never any right words to say before a battle. Red is twenty-seven years old and almost everyone she has ever known or loved is dead. Of the few who are left, there is no one who is sure to survive another sunrise. She watches White stand up and clips on her pistol, and wonders if this is how it all ends.

White starts walking toward the door, then stops and turns back. “Red?” She says quietly. “It’s truly been an honor.”

Red Hood stands there and looks at her, standing there with her dark uniform and her scarred face and her sharp, unyielding, and somehow, with all the years that have passed, she is still the woman who met a furious child once upon a time, and gave her a way to fight and a place to call home.

“White.” She says, and the words are old and used, but they are the only way she knows how to say goodbye. “I’m really glad I met you.”

The general of the resistance meets her gaze for a long moment, fire against fire. The she nods, decisively, and turns around.

Red sits down in front of the monitors, and watches her leave.

She knows she won't see her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr! I am @annietheseawitch.


End file.
